July at Duck Lake

July began with an Independence Day weekend trip to the camp with Les, Trish & Magnolia. The fishing was pretty good, with some nice smallies in the 12-14 inch range, and a "lunker" 16.5 incher caught by Trish. Plenty of good footage was captured on the new video camera and resulted in the fine film Independence Day Weekend at Duck Lake. It was also on this trip that Les caught his coveted smallie on a flyrod (three in all, actually).

July ended with a family trip, celebrating my mother's birthday. Doug, Nikki and Autumn came up, as well as Charley, and me of course. The fishing was even better this time, with active smallies all over the lake, particularly around Grass Island. We also got into a school of very pretty, very hard-fighting (for their size) pumpkinseeds which produced some tasty fillets for a lunch fry on Monday. The white perch also made some appearences feeding on the surface during the evening hours. I took Charley out Monday evening for a troll, and watched her catch her first smallie, a scrappy 12 incher--definitely the highlight of my time at the camp. Charley, Autumn & I even got into some hornpout monday night off the dock. Doug took the trophy this time around, with a bruiser 16.5 inch smallie, followed closely by Nikki's 15.5 incher! Grass Island!

Something New Every Time

Dad, Mom, Les, Trish, Magnolia and I spent this weekend at the camp. For the most part the weather was very cooperative. There was a little rain Saturday afternoon, and a cold wind on Sunday morning, but nothing to ruin the weekend.

Les, Trish, Magnolia and I arrived late Thursday night after the usual looooong drive. Friday morning found us trolling for salmon on Sysladobsis. It was certainly beautiful out there, but we didn't catch anything.





A late afternoon/evening outing on Duck Lake proved equally unproductive, although we worked several locations, including Getchell Brook inlet and the surrounding waters, Grass Island, the underwater weed bed at the east end, and the rocks along the southwest shore. We were all treated to Dad's Mediterranean fish stew that night, followed by a nice cozy campfire.

It wasn't until Saturday that we started catching fish. I landed a tough 13 inch smallie from the dock, fishing a crawler on the bottom, before we decided to drive over to Lowell Brook to try for wild brook trout. The drive on the hilly and gravelly dirt road was perhaps too much for my small Ford Focus, but we made it. Lowell Brook rolls through a beautiful and remote woodland setting before it empties into Duck Lake via the beaver bog, and holds a lot of very small native trout. We caught a few but did not keep any. An approaching rainstorm forced us to leave after about 45 minutes.

Saturday's rain provided some time for Les to work on his newly acquired fly-tying skills, and his also newly acquired and impressive flycasting abilities earned him a nice fight with a large white perch from the dock in the evening. I also landed a big white perch from the dock that night, on another crawler.

Magnolia also had her share of fun on the trip, and even got to go out on the dock a little. Someday she'll be fishing like mom and dad, maybe even from Duck Lake!

Sunday morning we began to work a rocky point along the northeastern shore of Duck Lake which we have come to call "The Dolly." The Dolly lies a few hundred yards northwest of Getchell Brook inlet. Les picked up a fat 16.5 inch smallie trolling over The Dolly, and on a return trip later that afternoon Trish caught a nice 14 inch smallie. The lure of choice was a deep diving hard swimmer.

But for me the most exciting fishing moment of the trip was the beautiful 9-10 inch wild brook trout that Trish caught out in front of Richard's camp. True to its "eager-to-bite-just-about-anything" nature, the little brookie was caught trolling, with the same fat swimmer that caught the smallies. I didn't believe that brook trout came into the lake itself, but I always hoped that they would. That's the great thing about fishing Duck Lake, it seems we discover something new every time.
Of course all good Duck Lake vacations eventually come to an end, and after a late lunch, Trish's first Woolly Bugger, and a few more casts from the dock, we headed back to New Hampshire with hopes of returning in the Summer.

Ice Out

Well, according to sources from Lakeville, Duck Lake had ice out by April 1! That is unusually early. If I remember correctly, the average ice out date for most lakes in that region is May 1, an entire month later! What makes it more surprising is that this photo shows the lake as it was less than a month prior to April 1, when I was up for a week of ice fishing; there was about a foot and a half of ice at the time.

Anyway, the real question is how will it affect salmon and togue fishing? We'll have to wait 'til the first week of May, when we go up with Les & Trish and Magnolia, to find out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Welcome To Camp Ouananiche

Camp Ouananiche is located on Duck Lake in Lakeville, Maine. It is owned by Anthony Cote, Jr. and Evelyn Cote. As Maine lakes go, Duck Lake is not large, but it more than makes up for this in its overall beauty, seclusion from civilization, fishing opportunities (including both cold and warm water species), and diverse wildlife. If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting Camp Ounaniche you know what I mean.